Page:True stories of girl heroines.djvu/177

 MARY BRIDGES

LEANOR! Sister! There be days when I know not how to bear it. I feel that I shall do something desperate."

"Nay, hush, Mary! hush! why shouldst thou speak so wildly? We must be patient! Things will not always be so black!"

"Patience, patience! I am sick to death of the word! We have borne with these odious men about the house, till sometimes I feel that I can bear it no longer. And now that our father hath gone, and Robert with him, I feel that the house is scarce a safe place for our mother or ourselves."

"Come, come, Mary, thou dost go something too far!"

"I trow not. Those bloody, hateful men of Kirke's, what do they care how they frighten or annoy those who are forced for a time to shelter them? The maid servants dare never be alone for an instant. They never know but that one of those half-tipsy fellows will not come lurching in upon them. And listen, 'twas only just now that I met one of them, 149